"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith"
About this Quote
The subtext is Jobs’ favorite kind of reassurance: severe, almost impatient. “Don’t lose faith” isn’t a plea for optimism; it’s a directive to keep moving when your narrative collapses. Faith here isn’t religious so much as craft-based: faith in your taste, your capacity to iterate, your ability to rebuild identity after being told you’re washed. Coming from Jobs, that carries the shadow of his own mythos - especially his ousting from Apple and the long detour through NeXT and Pixar before returning as the visionary redeemer. The brick is personal history repackaged as portable advice.
There’s also a cultural tell: Silicon Valley’s preference for pain with a purpose. Jobs converts trauma into fuel, but he doesn’t pretend the fuel is clean. He’s warning you that the work will hurt and daring you to keep your conviction anyway - not because the world is fair, but because quitting would make the brick the last word.
Quote Details
| Topic | Never Give Up |
|---|---|
| Source | Unverified source: Stanford Commencement Address (Steve Jobs, 2005)
Evidence: Primary source context: Steve Jobs delivered the commencement address in Stanford Stadium on June 12, 2005 (Stanford’s 114th Commencement). The line appears in the prepared text of the speech in the ‘love and loss’ section: “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” Sta... Other candidates (2) Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs) compilation98.5% iods of my life sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick dont lose faith World's Greatest Faith Quotes (James Alexander, 2011) compilation95.0% ... work . It's people you have faith in or not . Yeah , sure , I'm still optimistic . I mean , I get pessimistic som... |
| Featured | This quote was our Quote of the Day on August 17, 2025 |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jobs, Steve. (2026, January 13). Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/sometimes-life-hits-you-in-the-head-with-a-brick-17690/
Chicago Style
Jobs, Steve. "Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith." FixQuotes. January 13, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/sometimes-life-hits-you-in-the-head-with-a-brick-17690/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith." FixQuotes, 13 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/sometimes-life-hits-you-in-the-head-with-a-brick-17690/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.










